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“Those who know their past will live better his future“

I always wondered, as a child, what was the origin of my family (paternal and maternal) and the meaning of the surnames of my parents (Altieri and D’Este). I was curious to know more about the history of my ancestors, who they were, what they did, their trades, where they lived.

This curiosity born of school age when a teacher of History, after a brief mention on the origin of the names in ancient Rome (praenomen, nomen and cognomen), asked us if we knew the origins and meaning of our surname. It was the death of my great-aunt, in 2005, that made me take the spring beginning the genealogical research, for the moment only on the paternal line.

I think everyone should know their family roots, poor or noble they are. Bert Hellinger, in his book “Without Roots can not fly,” reads these words: “The family is the soil in which we are rooted.

Until we recognize these roots, the wings that are popping remain weak. The family representations are a means to discover these roots and to free them from everything that weakens and damages. Then the force can flow from the roots to the wings. “I sincerely hope that this will be a starting point for those who will stay and who will want to continue my work to keep it alive and updated, but also to be able to tease an interest in genealogy to all those who visit this site. All these years of study and research, which cost me time and money, they took me to the places where my ancestors lived, worked and fought. I followed, step by step, all their tracks left over the years, I interviewed people, talked to historians, I spent whole days in libraries and archives (private and public) to comb through records and dusty books. But in the end the result was there. Let us always remember that the past of our ancestors, for better or for worse, shapes our present. All this made me discover the nobility of my family, a Nobility remained in manuscript because of political-institutional history of the last centuries of Italian.

My family in 2003 was inserted nell’Armorial de la Corse published by François Demartini. At my request, and after a careful and thorough examination of the documentation, which I submitted, the Scientific Committee of the Yearbook of Italian Nobility, founded in 1878 by Giovan Battista Crollalanza and now edited by Andrea Borella, has decided to put the card in my family in the XXXII edition 2011-2014. I dedicate this research, which is still active, to my parents and to my relatives, but especially to my daughter Domitilla and my wife Francesca that I endured and supported in all these years of work.

Claudio Altieri